Lost
by EtherealShadow
Summary: There was nothing left within me strong enough to summon up the tears to weep at how lost I had become. Jak torture angst.


Disclaimer: I do believe that we all know that I do not own anything in here but for the way that I weave my words together. I don't even own a copy of the game, all I can do is invade my friend's house as much as I can. o.o  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
It was the hope that kept me alive. Well, it was in the beginning, at least. The hope that this was all a nightmare was the first bright star that guided my way. I held firmly to that hope at first as the hours of my sudden captivity melded into days, then the days into weeks. But as time dragged on and it became apparent that this wasn't a dream after all, as the sheer brutality of the guards broke both my body and my spirit, I had to find some way to keep from losing myself.  
  
And so, like a child, I believed that my only true friend would come. I couldn't remember a time that he hadn't been with me. As odd as it sounds, I don't regret the fact that it was I who decided that we should go to Misty Island, the one place we were forbidden, and I who had inadvertently caused his change. I know that I should feel guilty, and a small part of me does; but it was because of the accident that we grew closer than ever before. He would come. I knew it.  
  
He will come.  
  
The guards were eventually denied the pleasure of seeing my face twisted with pain as they abused me. A sharp voice cut through the welcome fog that had enveloped my senses, the fog that served to dull the pain ever so slightly. "Lay off. The Baron has other plans for him."  
  
I was left in blissful peace after that, left to stare at the walls of my tiny cell so intently that at times I saw Daxter's face there, smiling compassionately at me, so realistic that I repeatedly leapt at the wall in an effort to touch him, just to know that he was real. And each time that I discovered that he wasn't there, each time that my desperately grasping fingers were met with nothing but cold metal, I could find the strength within myself to so nothing but curl up into a ball and weep.  
  
All my heart was centered around his furry little self.  
  
And just when I thought that I was healing, just when I thought that I would be left to rot with the lights that were too blindingly bright, left with the water that tasted too metallic and the food that was bland and spoiled, left with the smell of long-dead air and metal that was always as cold as ice, the Baron's "other plans" were revealed.  
  
The second that I saw that chair, I felt my heart turn to lead in my breast. I struggled against my captors, receiving a hard blow to the back of my head. Blood from a reopened wound dripped on the floor as I struggled not to lose consciousness from the blow. All too soon, I wished that he had allowed himself to slip into oblivion.  
  
The cold of the table sliced through me as soon as his back was forced down upon it, leaving a dull ache in my bones. Then the hard bands snapped shut, binding me to the table, leaving me to stare up at the huge chunk of metal that loomed overhead, shaking violently with pure terror. I could scarcely breathe, scarcely think. I tried as hard as I could to shut my eyes, but my body did not obey my will. All I could do was watch as the metal moved until it was pointing at me, watch as it began to glow with an unnatural mixture of green and black, one that was horribly familiar to him: the ethereal color of Dark Eco.  
  
"Activate it now."  
  
The machine began to whir and the glow grew stronger, grew larger as it raced down to impact my body and encase my psyche in its unnatural essence.  
  
It hurt like nothing I had ever felt before. My body burned, was encased in ice, I was being stretched until my flesh was being pulled apart, I was being compressed until all the parts of my body were smashed together, all indistinguishable from any other part of me, I was soaring above the world, I was impacting the ground, I was everything, I was nothing, I was alive and feeling, I was dead and could feel nothing, I was light and dark. I was blackness itself.  
  
After what seemed like hundreds and hundreds of aeons, the light abated, leaving all of my body screaming with pain and my chest heaving as I gasped desperately for breath. People circled the table, leaning in to stare at me. My eyes rolled around as I tried to take them all in, to make sense of something and to see them through the dense fog that was all around me. Finally, one face leaned in closer and my eyes focused on him. Had I been able to recoil, I would have done so, for it was a monster that stared down at me. One eye bore down into me; the other was covered by a menacing metal contraption that disfigured his face.  
  
"Interesting," he said, grabbing my chin to haul my face closer to his. "It will take some time to break this one." He released me and my head fell back to smash into the table. I felt myself slipping away, and gladly surrendered myself to the darkness. The image of my friend that had been my only comfort was blotted out by the image of the Baron's sneering face burned in my mind's eye.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
There was something there, something that had taken root like a cancer within me and had grown with each infusion of Dark Eco that I was put through. It wasn't very noticeable at first: but slowly, slowly, it expanded, and I began to feel its effects. And the most prominent thing it did to me? It made me despair.  
  
I lost hope that he was coming.  
  
Just as a seed is planted and then blooms, just as an egg changes and grows into something more, so too did the darkness inside of me. The pain was bearable; it faded after a time, after all. But I lost faith.  
  
Soon, too soon, the darkness that was slowly eating away at my soul wrapped itself around me until I was mired in the feelings of hate and despair and was close to losing myself to it. I could feel its malignity under my skin as though it were a tangible thing; it guided my thoughts and corrupted every single redeemable feeling of mine. He or his subordinate, Erol was there after each infusion. They were the catalyst to my darkness. The hate, instead of hope, became the single thing that kept me alive, kept me drawing breath.  
  
The malice that lived within me needed a way to be known, needed to draw a breath of fresh air to be able to live and grow.  
  
I'll kill him.  
  
I told him so, once, voice quiet, raw, untried. He laughed in my face.  
  
And so I vowed it again, more and more strongly until I was screaming it, over and over and over again, my voice drowning out the rest of the world but for the feelings that burned inside of me like a raging fire, screaming my fury to him until my voice cracked and eventually went raw and I could do no more than form the words silently with my mouth.  
  
It was in uttering that vow that something small, so deep and tiny within me that I barely even noticed it, twanged.  
  
There was nothing left within me strong enough to summon up the tears to weep at how lost I had become. 


End file.
